152 Voyage of the Novara. 



ashamed of his foreign descent, and to feel even more indig- 

 nation than a full-blood Brazilian at such a mortifying imputa- 

 tion. 



Among the various institutions recently established in Rio, 

 the introduction of which is intended to be made available 

 in promoting the physical well-being of the people, the fore- 

 most place must indisputably be assigned to the Board of 

 Health (Junta Central de Bygiena Fuhlicd). It owes its origin 

 to the appearance of the yellow fever and the cholera, which 

 had never been known before in the country. The former 

 broke out on the ^9th December, 1850, having been intro- 

 duced by vessels that had cleared from Bahia, at which port 

 it had been raging for some weeks. The ravages of this 

 pestilence were fearful in Rio ; out of a population of 250,000 

 souls, as many as 120,000 were attacked, and upwards of 5000 

 fell a sacrifice to the disease. 



The first case of cholera occurred a few years later, on 

 the 15th of July, 1855 j and during the months in which 

 it prevailed, nearly the same number (to be more precise, 

 4826) of the inhabitants of the capital were carried ofi^. The 

 fatal cases throughout the empire from this epidemic during 

 the eighteen months between May, 1855, and December, 1856, 

 are said to have amounted to the enormous number of 107,093 1 

 Dr. Francisco de Paulo Candido, one of the most eminent physi- 

 cians of Rio, and the principal member of the Board of Health, 

 states, in a report to the Government, relative to the statistics 

 of the cholera throughout the empire, that he had observed. 



